Nowhere Man
Commodore
Exactly
Temple of Doom versus Crystal Skull
- Thread starter Canadave
- Start date
Exactly
I like all four movies and continue to say Skull gets an unfair amount of hammering. The only thing I'll give on is that they elaborated too much on the aliens origin. It would've been fine for them to be just aliens but no they had to be interdimensional ones that live in spaces between the spaces. 
Other than that nothing in Skull is more outlandish than the others. Even getting past the idea of aliens its no more "hokey" than mystic Hindu stones with diamonds that emit fire. Aliens are no more "out there" than gold boxes holding the fire of God or bronze cups that turn plain water into an enternal youth formula.
Sorry but you can't hate on Aliens and find the other 3 plot devices logical. You just can't. Does. Not. Compute.
For the sake of the question in the OP I'll go with Skull.
Other than that nothing in Skull is more outlandish than the others. Even getting past the idea of aliens its no more "hokey" than mystic Hindu stones with diamonds that emit fire. Aliens are no more "out there" than gold boxes holding the fire of God or bronze cups that turn plain water into an enternal youth formula. Sorry but you can't hate on Aliens and find the other 3 plot devices logical. You just can't. Does. Not. Compute.
For the sake of the question in the OP I'll go with Skull.
A few years back, I watched TOD and wasn't quite sure why I didn't like it when it first came out. It's not Raiders, but as someone up thread pointed out, not a whole lot is. It's still fun, funny, creepy, etc. The only thing I really don't like about it is much of the action seems to go on just a little too long, but that's also true of almost anything Lucas and/ or Senor Spielbergo do. Es muy bueno. KOCS was okay, but not quite up to par with the others.
I think I would also prefer Temple over Skull. Skull was nice, but wasn't as exciting.
For me, the order is
Raiders
Crusade
Temple
Crystal Skull
For me, the order is
Raiders
Crusade
Temple
Crystal Skull
As far as I'm concerned, Temple blows Crystal Skull out of the freakin water. It's fun, the dialogue is snappy and clever, and there are tons of great, iconic action sequences (the nightclub fight, the airplane escape, the bug chamber, Indy vs the big Thuggee, the mine car chase, and of course the rope ladder).
Not to mention the fact it's got the same dark and hard-edged Indy from Raiders (before he was completely softened for the next two movies).
Crystal Skull on the other hand is just an embarrassment. The dialogue has no snap to it and is completely unmemorable, the action sequences are cartoonish to the extreme, and the whole Mayan/alien thing feels like some completely fucked-out new-age nonsense from 20 years ago (or like something you'd see in a SyFy Channel movie).
Not to mention the fact it's got the same dark and hard-edged Indy from Raiders (before he was completely softened for the next two movies).
Crystal Skull on the other hand is just an embarrassment. The dialogue has no snap to it and is completely unmemorable, the action sequences are cartoonish to the extreme, and the whole Mayan/alien thing feels like some completely fucked-out new-age nonsense from 20 years ago (or like something you'd see in a SyFy Channel movie).
I like all four movies and continue to say Skull gets an unfair amount of hammering. The only thing I'll give on is that they elaborated too much on the aliens origin. It would've been fine for them to be just aliens but no they had to be interdimensional ones that live in spaces between the spaces.
Sorry but you can't hate on Aliens and find the other 3 plot devices logical. You just can't. Does. Not. Compute.
Precisely why I don't have any real problems with KotCS. Not even with the "spaces between spaces" part. I just find Raiders and Temple a little more fun. That's about it.
Temple hands down.
I appreciate the fact that they took it in a darker direction. Unfortunately it was cancelled out by Crusade and Crystal Skull. I still like Crusade and Raiders better, but it would have been nice to keep that darkness from Temple.
Crystall Skull, on the other hand, was laughably bad.
My order....
Crusade > Raiders > Temple >>>> Crystal Skull
I appreciate the fact that they took it in a darker direction. Unfortunately it was cancelled out by Crusade and Crystal Skull. I still like Crusade and Raiders better, but it would have been nice to keep that darkness from Temple.
Crystall Skull, on the other hand, was laughably bad.
My order....
Crusade > Raiders > Temple >>>> Crystal Skull
I don't believe this. I really don't. How can Temple possibly be ahead, apart from either the nostalgia factor or people just plain misremembering?
- Willie's screaming and whining. Ugh.
- Short Round driving a car, being every bit as annoying as Jake Lloyd in his fighter.
- Rafting down the mountain: every bit as cartoonish and impossible as the nuked fridge.
- The scene with all the different animal noises in the jungle: every bit as phony-awful as the Skull snake scene.
- Bringing a starving gal an apple: uh, real gentlemanly. Those are so filling...
- The spiked ceiling descends: is the constant continuity-scrambling meant to be satirical? Either way, it makes the brain hurt.
- Indy smacks a kid around. Always wanted to see that!
- What restraint! Short Round is Asian, but doesn't know any martial arts... until the end, where he busts a move out of nowhere.
- The mine cart chase: every bit as over-the-top cartoonish as Skull's jungle chase
- Mola Ram cackles like cackling's about to go out of style. Spalko may not have done anything cool, but at least she wasn't buffoonish.
- The last shot, with everyone mugging, just keeps going... and going...
- And I'm even willing to give all the backwards, non-PC stuff a bye.
Are there some cool parts to the movie? Absolutely. The darkness and cult stuff is fun, the opening sequence is fine (at least until Short Round starts driving) and there's some great imagery. But
- Oh god, Willie's screaming. Make it stop...
Nope, Skull wins, even if it makes no sense whatsover, even in a goofy pulp senes, for a high-tech door to appear above the throne room before a UFO takes off from below the pyramid itself.
- Willie's screaming and whining. Ugh.
- Short Round driving a car, being every bit as annoying as Jake Lloyd in his fighter.
- Rafting down the mountain: every bit as cartoonish and impossible as the nuked fridge.
- The scene with all the different animal noises in the jungle: every bit as phony-awful as the Skull snake scene.
- Bringing a starving gal an apple: uh, real gentlemanly. Those are so filling...
- The spiked ceiling descends: is the constant continuity-scrambling meant to be satirical? Either way, it makes the brain hurt.
- Indy smacks a kid around. Always wanted to see that!
- What restraint! Short Round is Asian, but doesn't know any martial arts... until the end, where he busts a move out of nowhere.
- The mine cart chase: every bit as over-the-top cartoonish as Skull's jungle chase
- Mola Ram cackles like cackling's about to go out of style. Spalko may not have done anything cool, but at least she wasn't buffoonish.
- The last shot, with everyone mugging, just keeps going... and going...
- And I'm even willing to give all the backwards, non-PC stuff a bye.
Are there some cool parts to the movie? Absolutely. The darkness and cult stuff is fun, the opening sequence is fine (at least until Short Round starts driving) and there's some great imagery. But
- Oh god, Willie's screaming. Make it stop...
Nope, Skull wins, even if it makes no sense whatsover, even in a goofy pulp senes, for a high-tech door to appear above the throne room before a UFO takes off from below the pyramid itself.
I like Temple more for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is that John Williams wrote a fantastic original score for Temple, while Skull was just rehashed music from the earlier movies more or less.
Possibly because of the Sino-Japanese War, I think. Doesn't the opening scene take place in Shanghai?
Gaith said:
Ha ha, yeah, that was great.
Actually from what I heard it was so they wouldn't have to use the Nazis in the film.
I thought that this was funny:
http://www.hecklerspray.com/harrison-ford-decides-to-get-married-to-calista-flockhart/201047335.php
http://www.hecklerspray.com/harrison-ford-decides-to-get-married-to-calista-flockhart/201047335.php
Well, if you set your film in China and India, it's very unlikely you're going to run into any Germans in any time period, unless Falkenhausen happened to be passing through the former.
No, I meant that Shanghai fell under Japanese control in early 1937--I don't know when Raiders took place, though. One could have fit a 1936 Temple on the other side of a 1935 Raiders, with a 1937-early 1939 Crusade.
That said, I don't remember whether or not Indy met any claims about the Ark with incredulity or skepticism in Raiders, but I vaguely think he might've. This would not be very consistent with seeing obvious magic in Temple.
Char Aznable
Lieutenant Commander
^ He does react with some skepticism at the Ark as I recall, but I suppose one can argue that he may have been blinded by the prospects of finding THE Ark (hopefully before the Nazis) that he didn't want to let Marcus' or anyone elses superstition get in the way. Indy's still an archaeologist first and foremost.
Maybe he decided the one true religion was Kali's, or at least the Hindu pantheon's. "Yahweh? Forget that dude! I've seen a Kali-worshipper rip a guy's heart out and he was still alive enough to be scream when he got pitched into lava afterward. I'm a Vaishnivite myself, but that was some hardcore shit."
What if they choose...poorly?
I always figured it was so they wouldn't have to explain why Marion wasn't still around. You definitely get the sense at the end of Raiders that her and Indy would be together a little longer, which would have made him look like a complete scumbag for fooling around with Willie in the next movie. lol
